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Moves Signal Tighter Secrecy Within C.I.A.
By SCOTT SHANE and MARK MAZZETTI
Published: April 24, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/24/washington/24leak.html?_r=2&th&emc=th&oref=slogin&oref=login
WASHINGTON, April 23 — The crackdown on leaks at the Central Intelligence
Agency that led to the dismissal of a veteran intelligence officer last week
included a highly unusual polygraph examination for the agency's independent
watchdog, Inspector General John L. Helgerson, intelligence officials with
knowledge of the investigation said Sunday.
The special polygraphs, which have been given to dozens of employees since
January, are part of a broader effort by Porter J. Goss, the director of the
C.I.A., to re-emphasize a culture of secrecy that has included a marked
tightening of the review process for books and articles by former agency
employees.
As the inspector general, Mr. Helgerson was the supervisor of Mary O.
McCarthy, who was fired Thursday after admitting she had leaked classified
information to reporters about secret C.I.A. detention centers and other
subjects, agency officials said.
Mr. Goss and the C.I.A.'s deputy director, Vice Adm. Albert M. Calland III,
voluntarily submitted to polygraph tests during the leak investigation to
show they were willing to experience the same scrutiny they were asking
other employees to undergo, agency officials said. Mr. Helgerson likewise
submitted to the lie-detector test, they said.
But Mr. Helgerson's status as the independent inspector general — a post to
which he was appointed by the president and from which only the president
can remove him — makes his submission to a polygraph even more unusual.
L. Britt Snider, who served as inspector general from 1998 to 2001, said in
an interview on Sunday night that he had not been given a polygraph in that
position, though he said he was given an initial polygraph when he arrived
at the agency in 1997 as special counsel to the director.
"I've never heard of it, and it's certainly unusual," Mr. Snider said. He
called it "awkward" for the inspector general to be, in effect, investigated
by the agency he ordinarily investigates.
But Mr. Snider and another former senior intelligence official said that it
would not be improper if Mr. Helgerson had volunteered for the polygraph to
set an example for others.
Reached by telephone on Sunday, Mr. Helgerson declined to comment and
referred a reporter to a C.I.A. spokesman, who said he could not comment on
any aspect of the leak investigation.
Further details about the inspector general's polygraph test could not be
determined.
Mr. Goss has repeatedly expressed unhappiness with what he sees as the
laxity of C.I.A. employees and retirees in discussing agency matters. He has
taken up the cause of tightening information controls across the board,
partly in response to calls from the White House, the Congressional
intelligence committees and the presidential commission on weapons of mass
destruction.
Mr. Helgerson's office, which investigates accusations of lapses in the
ethics or performance of agency employees, has investigated some of the most
serious controversies of recent years, including cases involving accusations
of detainee abuse.
Since a 1989 change following the Iran-contra scandal, the C.I.A.'s internal
watchdog has been confirmed by the Senate and has reported to the
Congressional intelligence committees as well as to the C.I.A. director, a
shift intended to assure the position's independence.
Among the subjects handled by Mr. Helgerson's office was a report completed
last year that faulted senior C.I.A. officials for lapses in the failure to
prevent the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. But Mr. Goss kept the report
classified and did not punish any of those named.
Former officials say the inspector general's office has also referred more
than half a dozen cases of detainee abuse to the Department of Justice, but
officials there have taken no action, except for a pending prosecution of
one agency contract employee charged with beating an Afghan prisoner who
later died.
The "single-issue" polygraphs, which are distinct from the routine
polygraphs given to agency employees at least every five years, have been
conducted by the C.I.A. Security Center but with close supervision from Mr.
Goss's office, one official said. Like other current and former intelligence
officials, he was granted anonymity to discuss classified events at the
agency without fear of retribution.
For tightly "compartmented" programs like the secret detention centers, the
C.I.A.'s computer system automatically limits access to the few officers who
have the proper clearance to learn details of the program. The computer
keeps an audit trail of which officer has looked at which documents and when
they have done it, a record that would aid investigators hunting for a
leaker, officials say.
The renewed emphasis on the culture of secrecy has included a tightening of
the review process for books and articles by former agency employees, said
Mark S. Zaid, a lawyer who represents many authors who once worked for the
C.I.A.
Authors say the agency's Publications Review Board has been removing
material that would easily have been approved before. While the board in the
past has generally worked with retirees to make manuscripts publishable, it
now more often appears to be trying to block publication, the authors say.
And reprimands for violations have become more stern, including letters
warning of possible Justice Department investigations.
A C.I.A. spokeswoman, Jennifer Millerwise Dyck, denied that the Publications
Review Board's standards had changed.
"The only rule is that they are not allowed to have classified information
in their manuscripts," Ms. Millerwise Dyck said.
But Mr. Zaid said: "There's been a fundamental shift in practice at the
Publications Review Board. There's literally been a reinstitution of the
1950's attitude that what happens at C.I.A. stays at C.I.A."
Mr. Zaid said the shift in the agency's approach to publications under Mr.
Goss was most clearly illustrated by its handling of a book by Thomas Waters
Jr., who wrote about his experiences as a recent agency recruit.
He said the manuscript of Mr. Waters's book, titled "Class 11: Inside the
CIA's First Post-9/11 Spy Class," was approved by the Publications Review
Board in September 2004 with several modest changes. Mr. Waters then sold
the book to Dutton, made the changes and submitted the galleys for a final
review.
In February, Mr. Zaid said, the board returned the galleys with nearly half
their contents marked as classified and not approved for publication. Mr.
Waters, who left the agency after two years for family reasons, has sued the
agency to permit publication, and the case is pending.
"What's ironic is that it's a very positive book," Mr. Zaid said. "He had a
great experience and he thought this book would be a great recruiting tool."
In other cases, Mr. Zaid said, an acquaintance was recently refused
permission to publish an op-ed article that drew on material from the
agency's Web site. Another client's book was turned down because, the author
was told, even though no single chapter was classified, the whole manuscript
revealed enough information that it had to be classified. This so-called
mosaic theory of classification, Mr. Zaid said, is being used more often to
prevent publication.
Another former employee with long experience having publications approved
agreed that reviews had become tougher. "It takes longer and there's a much
more conservative approach," the former employee said, adding that he
believed that some of the deletions had crossed the admittedly fuzzy
boundary between protecting classified information and censoring personal
opinions.
Another retiree agreed, saying he believed the agency had begun pressing
authors to excise some unclassified material from manuscripts. "It's a more
complex process than it used to be," he said. "Now, they question a lot more
things."
Yet another agency retiree, who has in the past received warning letters
from the C.I.A. after occasionally publishing articles without seeking
approval, said he had recently gotten a far more strongly worded letter.
This one informed him that a file had been opened to document his
transgressions that could be forwarded to the Justice Department, he said.
Mr. Goss's effort to lower the profile of the agency has apparently been
extended to the Web site of its Center for the Study of Intelligence, which
for years has carried unclassified articles about the history and practice
of spying from the in-house journal Studies in Intelligence.
Max Holland, who has written two articles for the C.I.A. journal, recently
reported in The American Spectator that the online posting of unclassified
excerpts from an agency review of the failure to assess Iraq's
unconventional weapons accurately had been delayed for seven months. The
last issue represented on the C.I.A. Web site is from mid-2005.
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